Sunday 22 July 2012

NotEye non-QWERTY fix

I have found a bug report that NotEye was not working correctly on non-QWERTY Windows... So I had to fix that. Hope it works now. Hydra Slayer is not affected (it was already fixed on Linux and in the integrated Hydra Slayer). At least the minor version number agrees in HS and NotEye now :)

Direct download link

Hydra Slayer 13.7 and NotEye 5.6

And yet another joint update. Do not worry, no new versions planned soon, unless something is very wrong :) I will have other things to do...

Direct download link (but better download 5.7)

Hydra Slayer 13.7:
  • Fixed bugs with the 'full information' which displayed hydras incorrectly and caused crashes.
  • Fixed some graphical bugs with non-animated one-headed hydras (their head disappeared somehow) and 6-headed hydras (they had holes in them).
  • Hydra Slayer adds statistics about auto-explore, auto-attacks, and alien killing. Also some special hydras were not counted in "hydras killed", this is fixed.
  • You can now quit Hydra-Slayer with Esc. It also handles the close window button (via NotEye).
  • You can now break auto-explore by pressing 'o' again. The screen is refreshed during auto-explore (NotEye-curses handles refresh and getch more correctly now). Mushrooms are automatically destroyed during auto-explore if there are no more hydras.
  • Auto-attacks now works correctly with ambidexterity.
  • Configuration (manual fire, alt-keys, quickmode, simplehydras) is now kept when pressing 'n' for new game.


NotEye 5.6:
  • Additional choices of key layouts. You can now choose WASD, QWEADZXC, or pseudo-VI keys.
  • Users can also now specify their own key remappings in config.noe.
  • Some bugs related to auto-rotation of directional keys were fixed (for example, arrow keys did not work correctly in inventory in Hydra Slayer when in ISO or FPP modes).
  • Some keys in the NotEye menu are more natural now.
  • Updated the version information in Windows executables.

Friday 20 July 2012

Hydra Slayer 13.6 (and NotEye 5.5)



Yet another small, but hopefully cool, update.


As you can see on the picture above, hydra pictures now have procedurally generated animations (each hydra you meet will look a bit differently). If you do not like these or prefer the clarity of non-animated pictures, you can also press 'p' for them (they have became even more clear by putting a number of heads on the hydras, if not too small or too big).

You can now also move diagonally in hex mode by pressing left/right while holding the up or down key. And the quick inventory mode is now saved into the savefile. One bug in text has been fixed.

As for NotEye, not many changes here (animated hydras were rather on Hydra Slayer side), but still. Left and right arrows in the FPP mode now rotate instead of strafing. Much more reasonable on laptops. Recolored and ISO versions of tiles were cached, but they were not updated if the underlying tile changed. This is fixed now (so animated hydras work correctly in ISO).

Wednesday 18 July 2012

NotEye 5.4 and Hydra Slayer 13.5

NotEye + Hydra Slayer updated again!

For NotEye, the focus was on its integration feature. From now, NotEye works as a shared library for creating roguelike displays. Even without using NotEye's special graphical modes and other features, this library has advantages over both Curses (easier handling of arrows, can use 24-bit color, fullscreen in Windows) and libtcod (console output option). See sample.cpp for a sample "roguelike" (a @ moving on screen, actually) for a demo.

For Hydra Slayer there were several minor changes (thanks to kraflab for some of his suggestions):
  • right-click on map now gives information about things
  • attacking hydras with missiles now raises their awareness level, so they will hunt you even from afar (it should be harder to do the extremely boring exploit of hitting the hydra with missiles until they die.. even if it was quite hard before)
  • the colors change when you are on low health, and change again when you are dead
  • improved the texts shown when you try to do something after death (and you no longer can pickup anything)
  • you no longer see through corners in the 4-directional mode
  • fixed corpse images
  • fixed some grammar errors
  • fixed some more 64-bit saveformat incompatibilities
  • the log file now shows if you have used backups (with numbers) or the auto-attack mode
  • if you have enabled the backup cheat, you get "subtle" hints why permadeath is the right way—things that make less sense without permadeath (strongly relying on randomness or incomplete information) behave differently, usually to your disadvantage (the artifact with random effects does not work, shadow hydras defeated do not heal you, bloody hydras do not appear below the first boss)
  • fixed sight in the secret geometry (BTW if you want the secret geometry, just try weird key combinations on the race selection screen)
  • fixed a bug with bloody hydra placement
  • an information about movement added to the tutorial (it explains that you can choose other geometries, but not in tutorial)
  • resistances are now also shown on individual hydra description screens
  • some debug actions were available not only in the debug mode


And some minor changes in NotEye:
  • the exit window button is now handled (it is assumed that you would not want to use it to quit the game because it is risky, but it can quit playback and the main menu)
  • no crashes when trying to move in the middle of turning, in the FPP mode
  • refresh scripts (F5) works better in NotEye (it no longer hangs Hydra Slayer)
  • UI can now work as a separate thread (Lua coroutine), this is used in sample.cpp

Sunday 15 July 2012

NotEye 5.3 and Hydra Slayer 13.4

And even more changes! A release of Necklace of the Eye 5.3 and Hydra Slayer 13.4 is hereby announced. The biggest change is probably support for three more games (nLarn, Rogue, and NetHack), using RLTiles.

Hydra Slayer:
  • Vampires renamed to Vultures, improved the description for the Powder of Decapitation, fixed the Alien hydras description
  • Titans are now able to tell the effect of their reforging (and get a confirmation when picking up)
  • Daughters of Echidna nerfed a bit (potions of ambidexterity are now required to affect several scrolls at once, instead of healing you)
  • Removed the double confirmation when reforging
  • Fixed some bugs with Hydra Slayer streaming (and also streaming in general)
Display:
  • Double mini-tiles option. This option produces tiles of size of two ASCII characters; such map is drawn in the roguelike's usual map area. This means that you can see half of the level. This is a reasonable compromise between the tiny minitiles and large tiles which show just a small portion of the screen.
  • Added RLTiles to be used in games.
  • Curses mode no longer requires an X server in Linux.
  • Fixed some bugs in the interpretation of ANSI console codes, which fixes some problems in Linux (also the bell works now).
  • Faster Linux console (was hard to run DoomRL previously)
  • Exits more cleanly if unable to set any graphics mode.
Sound:
  • Included music is now played in all games (except DoomRL and PRIME, because they have their own music or do not match). Also users can use their own playlist in config.noe.
  • When a sound is not found, simply ignore it
Keys:
  • Fixed a bug with directional keys not working occassionally if we played one game and switched to another
  • Fixed F1-F5 keys in Linux
  • Fixed Ctrl+ keys in Windows
  • Fullscreen (Alt+Enter) works in the main menu.
  • Now all three keys (F4, Ctrl+M, Ctrl+]) invoke the NotEye menu, unless disabled by the specific config due to a comflict. Also should work better in non-Qwerty layouts.
  • Brogue menu option '.' should now work in other keyboard layouts
Running games:
  • Added support of three new games: Rogue, nLarn, and NetHack. Rogue and nLarn are almost completely covered by RLTiles.
  • Improved the directory structure. Generic scripts are in the "common" subdirectory, and game-specific configurations are in the "games" subdirectory.
  • Improved the caller scripts. Should be more clear now.
  • An option to always call the game manually (config.noe).
  • Refactored tile configurations. Some functions were copied (exactly or with minor changes) between DoomRL, ADOM, Drakefire Chasm, and the three new configs. Generic functions have been provided for these things, which makes configs shorter and more legible.
  • NotEye menu has some hidden options for tileset developers: reload the script files (F5), explore RLTiles, Vapor tiles and font (F6), and examine coordinates, ASCII codes and colors (F7).
Other:
  • Improved the way of installing NotEye in Linux. Some things work better now (a special caller script, saves screenshots to current directory, no longer changes directory unless needed)
  • More details in readme.txt.
Have fun with three more games!

Wednesday 11 July 2012

NotEye 5.2 and Hydra Slayer 13.3

Necklace of the Eye has been mentioned in the Roguelike Radio, as a potential way of adding tiles to ADOM. On the other hand, I got some useful feedback about Hydra Slayer 13.2 (thanks Ancient!).

These are very good reasons for an update! Since the two projects have essentially been merged into one, I provide a single all-in-one package which includes both Hydra Slayer and NotEye. Moreover, it includes both Windows executables and sources which should compile on Linux.

These changed apply to both NotEye and Hydra Slayer:
  • fixed problems with the cursor
  • fixed ASCII animations in integrated roguelikes (like Hydra Slayer)
  • you can now run "make install" to install Hydra Slayer and NotEye in your Linux system for all users
  • (technical) fixed the location of lua5.1 include files
  • "-N --ascii" option runs NotEye and Hydra Slayer in ASCII
Specific to Hydra Slayer 13.3:
  • redesigned the inventory menu
  • fixed some typos
  • explained better what Potions of Knowledge do about bloody hydras
  • fixed useless targetting signs which appeared outside the map
  • fixed the ASCII animation breaking the hex mode
  • fixed the delay after trying to reforge an item which is not reforgable
  • hydras are now shown as multi-digit numbers in the hex mode, even on the edges of the screen
  • special colors for ivy and arch-hydras
  • should now be possible to re-run Hydra Slayer in NotEye
  • "wounds from shadow hydras" now appear after shadow hydras killed
  • removed the ASCII animation for stunned shadow hydras
  • (technical) fixed some compilation troubles in other versions of gcc
Specific to NotEye 5.2:
  • provided titles for the window
  • added icon and version information for NotEye.exe
  • You can have both integrated and external roguelikes; it is possible to integrate console roguelikes with NotEye by making them use NotEye's implementations of curses functions. This alternative to Curses, Libtcod etc. makes them run nicely on modern OSes, and gives access to NotEye's special features, like 24-bit colors, graphics, scriptable interface, and much more. (in progress)
  • you can run hydraslayer externally or internally (from config.noe)
  • a minor explanation about running Brogue
  • improved the caller script for Linux
  • fixed some bugs with the Linux console (although some still remain, "ansidebug" to debug them)
  • added a very basic config for PRIME (only set the map region, mostly)
  • NotEye 5.2 includes some some updates from Hydra Slayer 13.1 and 13.2, namely: music support, a new font, view recording from inside the game, change the sound and music volume, README.txt, mouse in the NotEye menu, activate the NotEye menu via F4

Friday 6 July 2012

Hydra Slayer 13.2

Thanks to some quick feedback by Darren Grey, Ancient, and Ortoslon, there is already version 13.2 of Hydra Slayer!
  • The theme has been changed to be more consistent with Greek mythology. There are still some things from other sources remaining for now, but the most important part is alright. You will no longer see runes, elves, and trolls. Thanks to Darren and Ancient for their ideas!
  • In most cases changing the theme affected only texts (and graphics), but Elves have been replaced with Centaurs (a mix of archery and power swipe did not make that much sense anyway). Centaurs start with a bow and are unable to perform power swipes. Maybe a power swipe-oriented race will return the future, but it will need to have more interesting properties.
  • Targetting icon is now actually displayed when a bow is selected.
  • Hydra Slayer should now work correctly with keyboard layouts other than qwerty.
  • The NotEye menu can now be activated with F4 (and also Ctrl+M on qwerty). This key is also displayed in more menus in the game.
  • Mouse now works correctly in the NotEye menu.
  • README has been renamed to README.txt for Windows users.
  • Some typos fixed.
Have fun!

Thursday 5 July 2012

Hydra Slayer 13.1

The new version of Hydra Slayer is released!

With this version, Hydra Slayer joins the Roguelike Incubator, a project where several roguelike developers aid each other (by giving mutual feedback and other help) with the goal of producing a bundle of polished and accessible roguelikes, in order to promote smaller roguelikes.

We are aiming to have a polished bundle by September, but if you want to try it already, you are welcome to play and give feedback. Have fun!

And here is the full list of changes:

  • NotEye is now integrated into Hydra Slayer. You no longer have to download something else to play Hydra Slayer. Also, integration means that it is run as a single project (running Hydra Slayer from NotEye sometimes caused bugs and looked strange on Windows). This integration allows the tile engine to access Hydra Slayer directly, allowing things which was previously impossible, like drawing all things which are present on the given cell.
  • Steam-style achievements. They were previously available in the Android version, but now they have also joined the desktop version (although they are local only).
  • Added the Tutorial, which explains what the game is about to the new players.
  • Cheat modes. From the save/quit menu you can get two cheats: Auto-Attack and Backup. Backup simply eliminates permadeath, and Auto-Attack executes the best attacks automatically (based on the algorithm used by the Potion of Knowledge).
  • Added music from Rogue Bard.
  • Scroll of Reforging description now shows how it will affect the currently selected weapon, as well as its smaller and larger counterparts
  • Three new artifact weapons (two of them are more useful for the early game, so there is a chance of finding them early)
  • The default geometry has been changed to 4-directional (most people seem to use laptops nowadays).
  • You can now get Help by pressing '/' or F1, and the save/quit menu by pressing F2 or F10.
  • Item/weapon/monster descriptions now have better backgrounds
  • Added the window title.
  • Added an icon (and file description) to the Windows executable.
  • Added nice stun animations to the graphical version.
  • Changed colors: darkblue is now lighter (it was hard to see), and golden replaces yellow (it represented golden weapons and hydras anyway).
  • Added a new font (and set it as a default), so Hydra Slayer starts in 800x600 resolution, and a bit more tiles fit on the screen.
  • Using rune of growth on mushrooms no longer causes a crash.
  • Fixed mouse clicks in Help.
  • Ctrl+M is shown in Help.
  • Saves on 64-bit systems were not compatible with 32-bit, that is fixed (without breaking backward compatibility).
  • Now can view recordings from inside the game; networking removed from the integrated version
  • Configure the default graphical mode via config.noe.
  • You can now change the sound and music volume.
  • Backgrounds in the mini-tile mode
  • Fixed a minor bug with twins' vorpal weapons
No update to the Android version for now (hopefully it will be released in September, together with the bundle).